>- Another said that ATI128 and Radeon's can handle MPEG decompression.
This is not true. What these cards _can_ do is handle the YUV to RGB color space conversion. YUV is why DVD's look so good when you connect them to a TV with a S-Video cable instead of the composite RCA jack. The color space calculations are intensive, and off-loading them to the graphics card 1) Allows the CPU to concentrate on decompressing the MPEG2 data 2) Allows the color calculations to be done taking the LUT installed from any color calibration software into account. Years ago we ordered a PCI-graphics G4 with a DVD drive to use with Sonic DVD Creator. The graphics card in that machine is a ATI Rage128, but it has a daughter card that has a C-Cube chip on it for MPEG decompression. Run-of-the-mill ATI cards will not do MPEG decompression. You would need a graphics card that also has a C-Cube or Zoran chip for the MPEG decompression (those are the most common chip manufactureers). The DVD Player application also needs to know it should send the compressed data to the graphics card. The DVD Player application for our PCI-graphics G4 is a special version that won't work on other machines with DVD drives, and the DVD player for other machines won't install (or run) on the PCI-graphics G4. All this is not meant to say a really good graphics card won't improve the playback performance of DVD videos, they just don't all decompress the MPEG2 data. One more thing, I think DVD videos look terrible on computer screens 1) MPEG video is usually encoded to be seen on a TV, so on a computer monitor, the colors look washed out, the blacks are too light and the lights are too dark. 2) Computer monitors are progressive, and the DVD playback software has to convert 2 fields to make one frame. This usually makes the image appear soft. -- Charles Dostale [EMAIL PROTECTED] System Administrator, Silver Oaks Communications http://www.silveroaks.com 824 17th Street, Moline IL USA 61265 309-797-9898 -- Unsupported OS X is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Unsupported OS X list info <http://lowendmac.com/lists/unsupported.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive <http://www.mail-archive.com/unsupportedosx%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
